Surfacing

Its been a rather trying couple of weeks. [Editors note: that is the infamous British stiff upper lip speaking] Not to put too fine a point on it I have been immersed in a sea of pain.

Physical..... turns out when the osteopath said serious injury she really meant it. I got into work once and looked so awful I got sent home again which was gratifying as I felt awful too. Plus I had to type kneeling in front of the desk because I couldn't sit down. Haven't been to work since. Have been drugged up to the eyeballs, talking absolute nonsense when awake (my vocabulary has leaked out of my brain) and sleeping for most of the rest of the day. I half heard the girls saying at the weekend "look mummy is asleep .....AGAIN" Have roused myself occasionally to go to get the back seen to and eldest has now become expert at making sandwiches for dinner for all of us. We have used up all the dubious tins of food lurking in the back of the cupboard. In fact I have become a bit of a celebratory at youngest's school. I have strange children pointing at me and saying "there is the lady with with bad back mum" as I hobble pitifully to the school gate looking for all the world as if I was a cross between a woman who had peed her pants and a distant ancestor of the homo sapien who is not entirely able to walk upright.

Emotional.... and just as I start to come off the drugs and walk a little more like a human being the Prince of Darkness delivers his verdict following Ultimatum Friday. Seems he is leaving me for another again. I am sure that he would argue with that statement but essentially that is the case. It has just floored me. For all the heartbreak he put me through, and if I must be fair I put him through, I thought we might just have a future. I've cried those unglamorous loud snotty without control sobs. I've screamed at him. I've thought about telling the girlfriend the truth about him. I've taken off the jewellery he bought me and thrown it around the house [Editors note: there is a ring behind the tv and a watch on the roof terrace]

Now I just wait. For my back and my heart to heal. I know that one day I will be able to pick things up from the floor. And one day he won't be my first thought in the morning and last thought in the evening. I will try to remember its all for the best. I am going to learn some exercises to strengthen my back but which will also apparently make my stomach flater. Really the Prince of Darkness is just a sad middle-aged man who won't confront his problems and has difficulty distinguishing the truth from a lie. He may well be the Prince of Darkness but he is not the Prince of my dreams. I really am better off without him.

I have done all this before. I know some days that I will feel like I am drowning in the pain again. But just for now I am surfacing for a while and that means that one day I will swim with the current again.

Flat on my back with frozen brussel sprouts

Its been quite some weekend. I've driven along the coast, been to three different UK airports, hired a car, driven over the Yorkshire moors, attempted a 26 mile walk (failed) and acquired a puppy. All in 48 hours. The net result of all this activity is that my back has ceased to work. I am flat on my back with a number of prescription painkillers coursing through my veins and a bag of frozen brussel sprouts pressed against my lower spine. Oh and a large glass of pinot grigio by my side - I figure it can only help at this stage. I felt strangely proud when the osteopath told me that I had a "serious injury" as all the sighing/moaning/yelping/whinging I have done over the last two days seems totally justified.

Oh and the daughters have been so totally wound round my little finger (cos I arrived home with a puppy and mother adoration is running at an all time high). They have been happily picking things up from the floor (an area which is currently unreachable), fetching things (including the pinto grigio) and generally looking after me.

As for the puppy; he is just adorable. He is going to fit right in being just as bonkers as the rest of the family. We bought him a big, comfy, expensive bed and he chooses to sleep here:

Yup. That's the bin and the glass recycling that he is crashed out next to. Which I think only goes to prove that his spiritual name and henceforth his blog name is CHAR-DON-NAY. I shall soon be checking the puppy manuals as to how to train him to open the wine.